| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: class in society, and that every child seen speaking to another child
with a lower-class badge, or any child wearing a higher badge than
that allotted to it by, say, the College of Heralds, should
immediately be skinned alive with a birch rod. It might even be
insisted that girls with high-class badges should be attended by
footmen, grooms, or even military escorts. In short, there is hardly
any limit to the follies with which our Commercialism would infect any
system that it would tolerate at all. But something like a change of
heart is still possible; and since all the evils of snobbery and
segregation are rampant in our schools at present we may as well make
the best as the worst of them.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: crossing a desert two days' journey over, was in great danger of my
life, for, as I lay on the ground, I perceived myself seized with a
pain which forced me to rise, and saw about four yards from me one
of those serpents that dart their poison at a distance; although I
rose before he came very near me, I yet felt the effects of his
poisonous breath, and, if I had lain a little longer, had certainly
died; I had recourse to bezoar, a sovereign remedy against these
poisons, which I always carried about me. These serpents are not
long, but have a body short and thick, and their bellies speckled
with brown, black, and yellow; they have a wide mouth, with which
they draw in a great quantity of air, and, having retained it some
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: Presidio Reservation. McTeague would walk out to the end of
the Union Street car line, entering the Reservation at the
terminus, then he would work down to the shore of the bay,
follow the shore line to the Old Fort at the Golden Gate,
and, turning the Point here, come out suddenly upon the full
sweep of the Pacific. Then he would follow the beach
down to a certain point of rocks that he knew. Here he
would turn inland, climbing the bluffs to a rolling grassy
down sown with blue iris and a yellow flower that he did not
know the name of. On the far side of this down was a broad,
well-kept road. McTeague would keep to this road until he
McTeague |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: lace bonnet with flowers in it. As to Lousteau, the wretch had assumed
his war-paint--patent leather boots, trousers of English kerseymere
with pleats in front, a very open waistcoat showing a particularly
fine shirt and the black brocade waterfall of his handsome cravat, and
a very thin, very short black riding-coat.
Monsieur de Clagny and Monsieur Gravier looked at each other, feeling
rather silly as they beheld the two Parisians in the carriage, while
they, like two simpletons, were left standing at the foot of the
steps. Monsieur de la Baudraye, who stood at the top waving his little
hand in a little farewell to the doctor, could not forbear from
smiling as he heard Monsieur de Clagny say to Monsieur Gravier:
The Muse of the Department |
